Guest of the Week (7/7/17)

Woody Allen once said, “If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign that you’re not doing anything very innovative.” And in an industry that thrives on innovation, many technology companies are providing employees with the room to fail, learn and invent the products and services of the future. One company’s “failure” in consumer virtual reality is leading to new discoveries within the gaming industry, as well as the Internet of Things market.

When Oculus VR LLC was developing its Oculus Rift VR gaming system, it created two kits for developer use. The kits were successful and led the company to the consumer market. When this happened, the company discovered that the customer preferred VR on their mobile device. This lesson brought about the realization that PC gaming market was not ready to invest in an expensive console, and Gear VR, a virtual mobile platform, was born.

“Now, worldwide for phone-mounted VR goggles, it’s about 20 million, and that’s just in two years, so that’s really intriguing. What has happened is [the market has] shifted away from an expensive PC-based rig for the computer to something that costs $50 and you just stick your cell phone in it,” said Jack McCauley, innovator in residence at University of California, Berkeley and co-founder of Oculus VR LLC. “That’s what has sold. And so if I were doing a startup right now, I would not be working on PC stuff; I’d be working on mobile stuff.”

McCauley spoke with Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, at the When IoT Met AI: The Intelligence of Things event in San Jose, California, to talk about the advances in VR and how he believes it will morph into new technologies.